Canada Raises Human Rights Concerns With Chinese Province Over Uyghur Forced Labour

Canada’s Ambassador to China raised human rights concerns with Chinese officials during a recent visit to a province known for suppression of Uyghur minorities and forced labour practices, Global Affairs Canada said.

Ambassador Jennifer May engaged with Ma Xingrui, Xinjiang party secretary and the province’s top leader within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), during the three-day trip beginning June 19, according to a June 23 press release.

“Ambassador May raised concerns over credible reports of systematic violations of human rights occurring in Xinjiang affecting Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities, including those raised by [United Nations] experts, and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,” Global Affairs Canada said.

Additionally, she expressed Canada’s concerns over reports of restrictions on Uyghur-language education and “the practice of forcibly placing Uyghur children into residential schools.” The ambassador also reiterated calls for China to allow independent U.N. investigators “unfettered access to all regions of China, including Xinjiang.”

The U.N. High Commissioner said in an August 2022 report that “serious human rights violations” have occurred in Xinjiang province. This assessment responded to allegations brought to the U.N. Commission in 2017, including a growing number of Uyghur disappearances in Xinjiang since the CCP’s establishment of “re-education camps.” The report noted that rights groups and researchers have linked these camps to widespread arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, forced labour, and other forms of abuse.

Xinjiang is one of China’s five “autonomous regions” primarily due to its Uyghur ethnicity, in contrast to other parts of the country where Han Chinese constitute over 90 percent of the population.

Since 2017, the CCP has ramped up control over the Uyghur population under the guise of fighting terrorism and “extremism,” as detailed in the U.N. report and various other studies. These efforts include forced marriages between Uyghur women and Han Chinese men, the implementation of a “home stay” program that saw over 1 million party cadres deployed to regularly visit and live with Uyghur households, and restrictions on language and religious activities.

An estimated 1 million to 3 million Uyghurs have since been arbitrarily held in in various “political indoctrination camps” in China, according to the World Uyghur Congress.

In February 2021, the House of Commons passed a motion recognizing Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China as genocide.

Ms. May’s trip marks the first time in a decade that a Canadian ambassador has visited Xinjiang, she told MPs while testifying before a House of Commons committee on June 17. Global Affairs Canada noted that it had consulted with diaspora groups and civil society stakeholders ahead of the visit.

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